Emily's Ministry Updates

Happy Late Thanksgiving.  I hope you had a great one with loved ones. I know I did.  Waldo was posed so perfectly by our Christmas tree that I had to snap a photo. The photo above one of our students taking home pizza from our event in November, Pizza Theology. She just cracked me up bringing to box with her into the lecture. Her name is Laura and she is easily one of the kindest people I know. She is one of our senior nursing students. The range of people she knows blows me away. I had the opportunity of hanging out with her and some TCC students during this month. I walked into our TCC cafe and there she was. My immediate thought was this girl is juggling so much, and still makes time for friends on other campuses.  I believe so deeply we need nursing students who model being a good student and someone who makes time for others. I see many nursing students disappear or become less involved once they are in their program. This isolation is honestly driven by fear of not ...

 Somebody pinch me. How are we already done with October?  October felt daunting to me. I had several big events planned on most of the weekends this month: FOCUS's fall camp, my annual visit to Wichita Falls with students, and visiting Tenth and Broad for their Diamond Jubilee Celebration of missions. All of these events were special and exciting, but I felt intimidated that they would leave me feeling drained from lack of rest. You know I love to host and make sure people are having a great time. I prayed and God gave me the strength to be present at all of these events. It really helps that I get to work with some fun people.  On that note, I want to say thank you again for supporting me in ministry. Your partnering with me through financial support makes this ministry possible. I am so grateful for your faithful prayers. It never ceases to amaze me how kind God is and I am reminded as I type about this past month. Thank you! Anyways, Let's get into the first event: Wi...

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God."- Colossians 3:16      Back in August this verse was introduced to the staff as our theme verse. Our theme verse for the year is something we let guide our year as we plan everything. Last year, we focused on how to do evangelism through friendships. It was something we heated up and talked about with our leaders often. We saw students being bolder than ever in their classrooms, making efforts to befriend people who would not typically come to a ministry event. So, I love how this year's verse is influencing our community.       Our staff team has started different initiatives to promote scripture reading: a scripture memorization challenge and hosting a public scripture reading event weekly. The scripture memorization challenge has been going well. The first challenge wa...

Praise God for the 90 Degree Weather!  Our team is celebrating. We made it through the welcome week at UTA. It was hot. The days were long, but we met so many students. Our first service had 135 students attend. This was mind-blowing for us. Last year, we averaged around 85 students each week at our weekly service. I am finding myself celebrating the boom in our attendance and also, celebrating the opportunity for these people to hear the gospel through our service. It can be so easy to measure success by having more bodies in seats. I am praying that our student leaders will help us as we connect with each of these new students. I am praying we have tons of new one-on-one bible studies. Pray that no one will be overlooked as we experience this surge of people.  Our theme for this year is "Between Two Worlds". In the past two weeks, we have been preaching through the Beatitudes, exploring how Jesus compares His kingdom to our world. It starts in verse 3 by saying:   ...

  Hello August, my old friend. Above is a photo from our staff retreat featuring our new apprentices! It was such a bless to get to refocus on Jesus as we approach welcome week. It is surreal to think this is my sixth year of campus ministry. Thank you guys for your prayers and support. I wouldn't be here with you and of course, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Our retreat centered on a book called " In the Name of Jesus" by Henri Nouwen. In the book, he takes the reader through the three temptations of Jesus and how those apply to pastors. He summarizes as them as the temptation of being relevant, popular and powerful. I found myself reflecting on how I have chosen those temptations over trusting and relying on Jesus. I ultimately found myself feeling convicted of how much I desire control and influence over the people I minister to. My desire comes from wanting the best for people, but ends up perpetuating the belief that I have control or power. I am praying that I see this y...

Greetings from Buc-ee's Above is a photo from Buc-ee's on the fourth of July. We got to met the celebrity beaver while visiting my family.  For any of my out of state friends, Buc-ee's is a huge gas station and this beaver is their face and mascot. I just had to get a photo of these two with him.  Here's a photo from our church's dog event. The guy above's name is Mauricio. The dog he is holding is his. We had a good laugh that his beloved dog was a pampered shih Tzu. He and Graham have become great friends over the year. He will be leading in the fall. Pray for our men's side of the ministry. What happens every four years or so is that many of our people graduate. We are coming into this year with fewer men leaders. Pray for them to have courage and boldness to reach out on campus to their classmates, friends and whoever. I'm hopeful with guys like Mauricio that we will meet the people God wants us to this year.  Ministry-wise, we have begun the prepara...